Passages from the Northwest
September 2006
Marcia Matthaei, NW Regional ChairGreetings,
Looking forward… For us in the Northwest, the big news is that we will be hosting the 44th Annual AAPC Conference at the Portland Marriott downtown waterfront, April 26-28, 2007. The theme will be “Loss, Resilience, and Hope” with Pauline Boss, Ph.D., as a featured speaker. She is the author of Ambiguous Loss: Learning to Live with Unresolved Grief; Family Stress Management: A Contextual Approach; and Loss, Trauma, and Resilience: Therapeutic Work with Ambiguous Loss. Ann Beattie has agreed to chair the local arrangements committee for the conference. She will love you forever if you call her up and offer to help out in any way that you can. Or, just call her and thank her for so graciously offering to be the lead in our region to extend hospitality to our colleagues across the country. Come to the fall meeting to show her, and her team, support for their commitment to AAPC. (Ann Beattie: (w) (503) 236-3229, or anndbeattie@comcast.net)
The fall workshop, Shared Wisdom: Our Selves as Instruments in Pastoral Care and Counseling will be presented by Rev. Pamela Cooper-White, Ph.D., Professor of Pastoral Theology at Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Dr. Cooper-White is an Episcopal priest and pastoral psychotherapist. She will be discussing intersubjectivity and the use of self in pastoral care and counseling, and the use of self in pastoral assessment and theological reflection. The meeting will be October 20-21, 2006 at University Place, Portland State University. Register by September 15 to receive a $20.00 discount for the conference.
Have you been missing a colleague that you haven’t seen for awhile at meetings? Give that person a call, and invite them to the fall meeting. The Friday program will provide time to reconnect and the program on Saturday will be engaging. If you have a colleague who has never attended an AAPC meeting, but is interested in theological reflection, invite them to this meeting. There will be opportunities for integration of theology and psychotherapy.
The NW region is in a transition from having two meetings per year to having one meeting per year. Because of attendance at meetings the council has decided to experiment with one meeting per year, alternating between Seattle and Portland every other year. Friday, the first day of our meetings, will probably include the council meeting in the morning, prior to the membership gathering for the business meeting, worship, sharing dinner and honoring regional members who have made significant contributions to the organization. The program for the meeting will all be on Saturday. By meeting in a more urban setting and offering the program on one day, we hope we will attract other professionals who are interested in theological and psychological integration.
In 2007, we will start the spring hosting the association. Then again we will be meeting in October—at Seattle University for our fall regional meeting. With the change in our meeting schedule, communication with one another becomes even more essential. The NW region needs a website. (Take a look at Central region’s: www.aapccentralregion.org) Would anyone in the region like to offer to work to set up a website for the Northwest? I’d love you forever and the council would support you in any way that would be needed. You can contact me at (253) 566-2829 X1 or mcmatthaei@aol.com
Looking back at spring 2006… The spring meeting at Dumas Bay provided an extended time to brainstorm about recruitment, retention and revitalization of AAPC in the Northwest. Some of the changes you are hearing about in this newsletter came from that gathering. Keith Hackett, our program presenter, encouraged us to play, to be playful, to explore play in marriage and to encourage couples to incorporate more play in their marriages to build emotional capital, to develop friendship, creativity, spontaneity and well being. We learned that you can always untangle the knot, you can always break the rules, and we had fun. I also learned that another word for sprinkler is “hosepipe.” Thanks, Keith!
Looavul, Kentucky, home of bourbon, hospitality, and the Kentucky Derby was the site of the 43rd Annual Conference of American Association of Pastoral Counselors. The conference chaplain, Harry Pickens, a jazz pianist, teacher, business strategist, and student of life, modeled surrendering to the divine to be an instrument of grace. Through the gift of his music, his poetry and presence we were held in sacred resonance that is rare at a conference.
Merle Jordan reflected on perspectives that have guided his four and a half decades of pastoral therapy. He reminded us that all psychotherapy is clinical theology. We are always working with an individual’s or family’s essential conscious and unconscious perceptions of ultimate reality and absolute truth. His model of coherence therapy contends that we all make idols of our internalized objects, and that our worldview is shaped by the early core relationships which create symptoms which always have profound meaning. When the meaningfulness of the client’s symptom is unlocked, the client can own the purposefulness of the symptom, which enlarges the inner freedom to consider different strategies to problems. As therapists, we are mediators of the unconditional love of our Creator, the embodiment of the divine suffering with our clients in their healing journeys.
In her keynote, Janis Abrahms Springs adeptly reframed genuine forgiveness as an intimate dance… a hard-won transaction… which asks as much of the offender as it does of the hurt party. Her presentation was thorough in challenging assumptions we have about forgiving, offering steps to take to come to acceptance, suggesting strategies for controlling obsessive thinking and describing cognitive errors we make. I would have appreciated the added dimension of following her presentation with a panel theologically reflecting on her model of healing in intimate relations.
The Theological and Social Concerns Committee presented a two part workshop, which focused on psychopatholgy, evil and sin—clinical and theological dimensions of a case involving internet pornography. An interactive format effectively provided a substantive presentation followed by theological responses and respectful and generative dialogue. As Harry Pickens fed our spiritual needs throughout the meetings, these workshops fed us clinically.
In meetings there was an opportunity for healthy dialogue between the Action Council and the Board of Directors further clarifying and defining the roles of the council and the board. The Action Council again requested a change in funding priorities to provide more time for the council to meet to provide the vision and strategic direction for the organization during this time of transition.
Regional treasurers were given comprehensive information through a time line describing the building of a budget and the roles of the Action Council, Finance Committee, Board of Directors and regions in this process. We will be approving our regional budget at the fall regional meeting. A task force has been formed to establish criteria for regions to request funds from the return on investments for creative ideas/special projects to address recruitment, retention and revitalization in the organization.
During the Northwest Caucus at the conference we focused on work accomplished by the Certification Committee. The need for long distance supervision is being addressed. The recommendation for Fellow supervision is that half of supervision be in person allowing half using technology. If a person needs all long distance supervision, it needs to be approved by the Association Certification Committee prior to initiation. The Fellow interview again requires an audio or video tape and a case study.
Most of us practice our craft quietly and alone in our offices with one or two clients at a time. If we’re blessed, as the saying goes, we also “have lives.” As you can tell in this newsletter, there are folks who have volunteered to carry on the organizational business of the craft we love. Keep us/them in your prayers and come join us this fall for our regional meeting and next spring for the gathering of our larger clan as we assemble to renew our friendships, to be inspired and to be challenged in our profession.
Blessings,
Marcia
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